Reorder Levels

The Reorder Levels screen is your buying list. It shows each item that is forecast to run out in the period you are looking at, and for each one:

• the date it runs out,
• the date you must place the order by, given how long your supplier takes, and
• how many to order.

Items already out of stock are listed first, because they are costing you sales today.

The run-out dates are not based on a flat average. SeroBooks takes the item's forecast, day by day, and subtracts it from the stock you hold, adding goods on open purchase orders on the day they are due. A busy December is therefore accounted for when you look in October.

Opening Reorder Levels

• Choose Forecast ▸ Reorder Levels, or
• Open Reminders and click Inventory to Reorder, or
• In Preferences, under Items & Inventory, click Reorder Levels.

Before you start: set a supplier lead time

The ORDER BY and ORDER QTY columns need to know how long your supplier takes, from the day you place the order to the day the goods are on your shelf. SeroBooks looks for it in this order:

1. The item's own Lead time (days), entered on the item form in the Reordering section. See Add or edit an item.
2. If the item has none, the business-wide Supplier lead time.
3. If neither is set, the two columns show —. SeroBooks leaves them blank rather than guess.

When no business-wide lead time is set and at least one item has no lead time of its own, an amber bar appears at the top of the screen. It says ORDER BY and ORDER QTY are blank because no supplier lead time is set and gives the number of items that need one.

To set the business-wide supplier lead time

1. Click Set lead time on the amber bar. Once a lead time is set the bar goes, and the Supplier lead time: N days button at the top of the screen (next to Refresh) changes it. Either opens the Supplier lead time window.
2. Read the numbered leg at the top: 1, Supplier → your warehouse, is the figure this box is for. If your company sells on Amazon, a second leg, 2, Your warehouse → Amazon, applies only to stock you send to Amazon, and you set it separately in Amazon ▸ Settings.
3. In Days from placing the order to goods on YOUR shelf, enter a whole number of days, for example 90 for goods shipped by sea from overseas or 14 for a local distributor.
4. Click Save. The list reloads with order-by dates and quantities filled in, and the amber bar disappears.

If the lead time cannot be saved (for example, the number is over 365 or is not a whole number), a message at the bottom of the screen says why. Cancel closes the window without saving.

Amazon sellers can also see and change the same setting under Amazon ▸ Settings, in the Supplier lead time tile. See Connect Amazon and Amazon settings.

Using the screen, step by step

1. Open Forecast ▸ Reorder Levels.
2. Under Looking ahead, choose 60 days, 120 days (the default) or 180 days. Only items forecast to run out within that period are listed. Use a longer period when your supplier lead times are long.
3. Read the summary bar, for example 12 products to watch · 3 already out of stock · 4 to order today. If nothing is at risk, it reads Nothing is forecast to run out inside 120 days.
4. Work down the list. The rows start with items already out of stock, then the items that run out soonest. Click the STATUS heading to sort by urgency.
5. Double-click a row, or select it with the arrow keys and press Enter, to see how that row was worked out (see The explanation window).
6. Order the items marked Out of stock and Order now first. Create a purchase order for each supplier with the suggested quantities (see Create Purchase Orders), and enter a Deliver By date on the order so SeroBooks knows when the goods will arrive.
7. Click Refresh to reload the list after you have saved your purchase orders. Goods on those orders now appear in INBOUND, and the items move down the list or drop off it.

The columns

Click any column heading to sort by it. When the list has eight or more rows, Search this list… filters the rows on screen. Use Export to save the list as CSV, Excel or PDF. The export is titled Reorder plan and notes how many days ahead it looked.

The screen lists up to 50 items, the most urgent first.

Status

When you sort by STATUS, rows run from most to least urgent rather than alphabetically. When you sort by RUNS OUT, already out comes before every date.

How the dates and quantities are worked out

Which items are checked. SeroBooks checks items that track stock, are active, and have sold in the last eight weeks, through any channel. An item whose stock easily covers the whole period at its recent selling rate is not checked further. Each remaining item needs about four weeks of its own sales history to be forecast. Items with no recent sales are not judged at all, because stocking them is a buying decision rather than an alarm.

Run-out date. Starting from ON HAND, SeroBooks subtracts the forecast sales for each day in turn and adds goods from open purchase orders on their Deliver By date. A purchase order with no delivery date is treated as arriving in seven days, so you are not told to order the same goods twice. The first day the stock reaches zero is the run-out date.

Could run out as early as. The forecast is a middle estimate, so half of real outcomes will be busier. SeroBooks repeats the walk with sales at the busy end of the item's usual range. The earlier run-out date it finds is shown in the explanation window.

Order-by date. The run-out date, less the supplier lead time, less seven more days to review the list and raise the purchase order.

Suggested order quantity. The forecast sales over the lead time plus 14 days, less what you already hold and have on order, rounded up. If the item has a Reorder qty on its item form, the suggestion is never lower than that. You can therefore use Reorder qty for a supplier's minimum order or a full carton.

The explanation window

Double-click a row (or press Enter on it) to open a window named after the item. It shows:

• A sentence in plain words, for example At the forecast rate the last unit goes on 2026-11-20. With a 90-day lead time, order by 2026-08-15, which has passed. Where a holiday or a busy weekday drives the run-out, the sentence names it. If the stock count is below zero, the sentence says so and suggests correcting the count.
• On hand and Already inbound.
• Supplier lead time, when one is known.
• Could run out as early as, the busier-than-expected run-out date.
• Suggested order.

Click Close to return to the list.

Permissions

Your role needs access to the Forecast module and the same access as the accounting reports. Without it, the screen shows You do not have permission for this. Ask an administrator to grant it under Users & Roles. Forecast is one of the Pro features. If your plan does not include it, the Forecast menu does not appear. See Your subscription and plan.

Common problems

Related articles

• Forecast
• Ship to Amazon
• Create Purchase Orders
• Add or edit an item
• Stock Levels
• Reminders